DEEP FILM Access Project (DFAP)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Brighton
Department Name: School of Art, Design and Media
Abstract
The DEEP FILM Access Project (DFAP) aims to unlock latent opportunities that exist within big and complex data sets generated by industrial digital film production.
Filmmaking as a process recently reached a scale and complexity where a new on-set 'data wrangling' role has emerged to manage the data generated by the camera(s) alone - further complicated by inter-relating Computer Generated Imagery and shooting in Stereoscopic 3D. Even small independent productions film on multiple cameras, increasing linearly the volume of raw material and exponentially the inter-relations between data items. Furthermore, data generated by the creative process, such as director and crew notations on quality, on the logistics and organisation of each shot, on props information and more, is recorded separately from camera data. Currently, the archival conventions for all this data contains duplication and opportunities for error; it also makes it impossible to search different kinds of data in an integrated way. As film completes its transition from photo-chemical to digital, new archival methods and processes are needed to cope with the data which also offers the potential for novel in-depth analysis of the film making process and results.
DFAP will develop an integrated process and framework for the management of all of the assets created by digital feature film production. First, we will design classifications and definitions that will standardise the description, layering and interlinking of data assets and enable them to be openly accessible online. Then, we will define a way in which this information can be integrated with the records made by all those who work on the making of the film (actors, crew, etc). Consequently, it will be possible to jointly interrogate the data generated by the cameras and the data generated by the creative process.
DFAP will explore the range of questions that this joint interrogation opens up, and how these questions might lead to film production data being used in new ways, across academic disciplines and industry professions, to challenge and expand existing knowledge and practices.
The new approach developed by DFAP will be tested and evaluated using British film director Sally Potter's latest release, Ginger & Rosa (2012), as a pilot. A period feature shot entirely on location in the UK, with a 3.5 million pound budget and a crew of over 155 members, it is almost entirely digital in all aspects. It provides an emblematic example of an industrial digital feature film production in contemporary Britain. DFAP will use the pilot to gain a sense scale and to define what its integrated system would require to be applied to other projects and materials.
The findings and outcomes of DFAP will be presented in peer reviewed journals and conferences. A project website will document the project as it develops, as well as its findings. In addition, the integrated dataset created as a result of the Ginger & Rosa pilot will be made openly accessible via Sally Potter's online archive.
Filmmaking as a process recently reached a scale and complexity where a new on-set 'data wrangling' role has emerged to manage the data generated by the camera(s) alone - further complicated by inter-relating Computer Generated Imagery and shooting in Stereoscopic 3D. Even small independent productions film on multiple cameras, increasing linearly the volume of raw material and exponentially the inter-relations between data items. Furthermore, data generated by the creative process, such as director and crew notations on quality, on the logistics and organisation of each shot, on props information and more, is recorded separately from camera data. Currently, the archival conventions for all this data contains duplication and opportunities for error; it also makes it impossible to search different kinds of data in an integrated way. As film completes its transition from photo-chemical to digital, new archival methods and processes are needed to cope with the data which also offers the potential for novel in-depth analysis of the film making process and results.
DFAP will develop an integrated process and framework for the management of all of the assets created by digital feature film production. First, we will design classifications and definitions that will standardise the description, layering and interlinking of data assets and enable them to be openly accessible online. Then, we will define a way in which this information can be integrated with the records made by all those who work on the making of the film (actors, crew, etc). Consequently, it will be possible to jointly interrogate the data generated by the cameras and the data generated by the creative process.
DFAP will explore the range of questions that this joint interrogation opens up, and how these questions might lead to film production data being used in new ways, across academic disciplines and industry professions, to challenge and expand existing knowledge and practices.
The new approach developed by DFAP will be tested and evaluated using British film director Sally Potter's latest release, Ginger & Rosa (2012), as a pilot. A period feature shot entirely on location in the UK, with a 3.5 million pound budget and a crew of over 155 members, it is almost entirely digital in all aspects. It provides an emblematic example of an industrial digital feature film production in contemporary Britain. DFAP will use the pilot to gain a sense scale and to define what its integrated system would require to be applied to other projects and materials.
The findings and outcomes of DFAP will be presented in peer reviewed journals and conferences. A project website will document the project as it develops, as well as its findings. In addition, the integrated dataset created as a result of the Ginger & Rosa pilot will be made openly accessible via Sally Potter's online archive.
Planned Impact
The PI (Atkinson), Co-I (Evans), Mentor (Arnold) and Project Partners fully recognise the limitations on achieving substantial, long-term impact within a project under the ECR strand of the Big Data call, in which the resources (staff and non-staff costs) are capped at £100,000. For this reason, the individual pathways (described in the attachment 'Pathways to Impact') are designed to improve the chances of the research actually reaching the potential impact(s) - which are:
- a new pilot/prototype data integration model, developed from the research methodology - combining the skills of computer scientists, visual media experts, filmmakers and archive / curation specialists. The long-term aim is to develop this prototype further and apply it as a new means of searching the vast range and volume of datasets, metadata and sets of metadata associated with film production.
- enriching the data available to researchers, filmmakers, archivists / curators, scholars and those interested in films (viewers, film critics etc) by establishing a new framework of standards and methodology for recording data during the production of films - essentially to make searching for the disparate range of data on individual films much easier. This impact will be limited, initially, but the long-term aim is to encourage filmmakers to adopt a culture of thinking about the data assets as much as the visual assets from the films they create and to work with those who will be responsible for curating these assets (Museums, film production companies, universities, broadcasters and studios).
- Achieve more consistency between data generated by automated processes e.g. by filmmaking equipment such as cameras, sound equipment etc and human recorded data - film call-sheets, director and producer notes etc. This will involve the start of a process that will have a longer-term impact - using the Ginger & Rosa data assets as a case study, the PI and Co-I will be able to demonstrate the value to a variety of audiences of the importance of embedding this consistency between data produced and recorded by human intervention and automated processes.
- Encouraging academic disciplines to work together - combining skills associated with computer science with those derived from knowledge, experience and expertise in the arts and humanities. the combination of skills between the PI and Co-I will act as an example case study during the dissemination of research results activities (see Case for Support and Pathways to Impact documents - attachments) - as a means of starting to have an impact - particularly within higher education of arts-led projects that bring in advanced skills and expertise from other disciplines to improve research design, methodology and results.
- A much longer-term potential impact will be to prove the value and transferability of the research methodology and application of the research results - in particular the pilot/prototype for the data integration model (for film) - to other areas of arts and culture. For example, the principles of this research project could be equally applied to music production, performing arts such as Theatre and Opera and to other visual-interactive media e.g. gaming / video games and the serious games industry.
The core impact, running through the entire project, is the unveiling of 'embedded' or 'hidden' assets for producers and viewers of films of all types and scale - from short-films to large-scale blockbusters. Linked to this, as a longer-term aim, is to reduce the time that new filmmakers spend on pre-production, production and post-production by using the embedded data in existing films to reduce planning times, opening up skills and learning for new film producers and film crews. The impact would be reduced costs associated with filmmaking and a more enriched experience for producers, viewers of film and researchers and scholars who study film and the filmmaking process.
- a new pilot/prototype data integration model, developed from the research methodology - combining the skills of computer scientists, visual media experts, filmmakers and archive / curation specialists. The long-term aim is to develop this prototype further and apply it as a new means of searching the vast range and volume of datasets, metadata and sets of metadata associated with film production.
- enriching the data available to researchers, filmmakers, archivists / curators, scholars and those interested in films (viewers, film critics etc) by establishing a new framework of standards and methodology for recording data during the production of films - essentially to make searching for the disparate range of data on individual films much easier. This impact will be limited, initially, but the long-term aim is to encourage filmmakers to adopt a culture of thinking about the data assets as much as the visual assets from the films they create and to work with those who will be responsible for curating these assets (Museums, film production companies, universities, broadcasters and studios).
- Achieve more consistency between data generated by automated processes e.g. by filmmaking equipment such as cameras, sound equipment etc and human recorded data - film call-sheets, director and producer notes etc. This will involve the start of a process that will have a longer-term impact - using the Ginger & Rosa data assets as a case study, the PI and Co-I will be able to demonstrate the value to a variety of audiences of the importance of embedding this consistency between data produced and recorded by human intervention and automated processes.
- Encouraging academic disciplines to work together - combining skills associated with computer science with those derived from knowledge, experience and expertise in the arts and humanities. the combination of skills between the PI and Co-I will act as an example case study during the dissemination of research results activities (see Case for Support and Pathways to Impact documents - attachments) - as a means of starting to have an impact - particularly within higher education of arts-led projects that bring in advanced skills and expertise from other disciplines to improve research design, methodology and results.
- A much longer-term potential impact will be to prove the value and transferability of the research methodology and application of the research results - in particular the pilot/prototype for the data integration model (for film) - to other areas of arts and culture. For example, the principles of this research project could be equally applied to music production, performing arts such as Theatre and Opera and to other visual-interactive media e.g. gaming / video games and the serious games industry.
The core impact, running through the entire project, is the unveiling of 'embedded' or 'hidden' assets for producers and viewers of films of all types and scale - from short-films to large-scale blockbusters. Linked to this, as a longer-term aim, is to reduce the time that new filmmakers spend on pre-production, production and post-production by using the embedded data in existing films to reduce planning times, opening up skills and learning for new film producers and film crews. The impact would be reduced costs associated with filmmaking and a more enriched experience for producers, viewers of film and researchers and scholars who study film and the filmmaking process.
Organisations
- University of Brighton (Lead Research Organisation, Project Partner)
- British Film Institute (BFI) (Collaboration)
- University of Southern California (Collaboration, Project Partner)
- Adventure Pictures (Collaboration)
- British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF BRIGHTON (Collaboration)
- National Media Museum (Collaboration)
- Adventure Pictures Ltd (Project Partner)
- The National Science and Media Museum (Project Partner)
- British Broadcasting Corporation (United Kingdom) (Project Partner)
Publications
Stolz Alex
(2020)
The Future of Film Report 2020: 2020
Lehmann, J.
(2015)
Applying Semantic Technology to Film Production
Atkinson, S.
(2014)
The DEEP FILM Access Project: Ontology and Metadata Design for Digital Film Production Assets
in Big Humanities Data
Atkinson S
(2016)
Digitally Preserving Potter
in Feminist Media Histories
Description | The Deep Film Access Project (DFAP) has developed a semantic infrastructure to contribute to the integration of the data and metadata generated during the feature-film production lifecycle. The project has developed the basis for a knowledge framework to support the automatic management of feature film digital assets, based on a workflow analysis supported by an OWL ontology. |
Exploitation Route | The findings have been taken forward into a funding application to Innovate UK led by Adventure Pictures, who are planning to build on our research in their commercial development of a film-industry software application. |
Sectors | Creative Economy,Education,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
Description | Impacts upon project participants are listed in the Engagement Activities section of my portfolio. |
First Year Of Impact | 2014 |
Sector | Education |
Impact Types | Cultural |
Description | Adventure Pictures |
Organisation | Adventure Pictures |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | The Deep Film Access project (DFAP) has facilitated the scanning, cataloguing and archiving all of the assets that Adventure Pictures have provided so that they can be accessed via their own interactive archival platform 'SP-ARK'. www.sp-ark.org |
Collaborator Contribution | Adventure Pictures have provided the Deep Film Access Project (DFAP) with full access and the use of the dataset generated by the making of their latest film Ginger & Rosa (Dir: Sally Potter, 2012). In addition to the materials generated by the filmmaking process itself, Adventure Pictures also enabled the filmed interview with every person who was involved in the making at the time of the production and these videos now form an integral part of the dataset. [A sample of these are included within a featurette that was produced by the DFAP Principal Investigator on both the UK Blu-ray and US DVD of the film release of Ginger & Rosa.] The Adventure Pictures team and associated personnel have also be providing expert advice on film production taxonomies, film industry-specific terminologies, process and protocols, as well as continuing to facilitate new partnerships with film industry specialists and professionals. |
Impact | The collaboration consists of the following disciplines: film archiving, filmmaking and film education. Conference proceedings: Atkinson, S. Evans, R. and Lehmann, J. (2014) The DEEP FILM Access Project: Ontology and Metadata Design for Digital Film Production Assets. "Big Humanities Data" Conference Proceedings , The Second IEEE Big Data 2014 Workshop, Bethesda, Maryland, Oct 27, 2014. The following outputs relate to this collaboration prior to the AHRC-funded project: DVD Feature: The Anatomy of a Film featured on Ginger & Rosa (2012, Dir: Sally Potter) distributed on Blu-ray by Artificial Eye (UK) and DVD, Lionsgate (USA). Journal Article: Atkinson, S. Sparking ideas, making connections: Digital Film Archives and collaborative scholarship in Grant, C. (Ed.) 2012. Frames Cinema Journal "Film and Moving Image Studies: Reborn Digital?" [online] http://framescinemajournal.com/sparkingideasmaking (accessed July 2012). Case Study Report: Atkinson, S. Film and Audiovisual Media OERs: The case of SP-ARK, The Sally Potter Film Archive (Topic: OER and Teaching Quality), A HEA/JISC Open Educational Resources Case Study: Pedagogical development from OER practice. 2012 [online] http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/oer/OER_CS_Sarah_Atkinson_Film_and_audio_visual_media.pdf (accessed July 2012). Conference Proceedings: Atkinson, S. and Calic, J. Audiovisual media open educational resources, The case of SP-ARK: the Sally Potter Film Archive. ECLAP 2012 Conference: Information Technologies for Performing Arts, Media Access and Entertainment, Convitto della Calza, Florence, Italy, May 2012. Conference Presentation and Proceedings: Atkinson, S. and Follows, C. (2012) Open educational social media content groups and networks within the arts, design & media education, Proceedings of Cambridge 2012: Innovation and Impact - Openly Collaborating to Enhance Education, OCW Consortium and SCORE, Cambridge, UK, April 16-18 2012, Milton Keynes, The Open University, pp. 272-280, http://oro.open.ac.uk/33640/ (accessed June 2012), ISBN978-0-7492-2937-5 [ebook]. |
Start Year | 2011 |
Description | Adventure Pictures - Innovate UK - Smart 2014 Round 3 |
Organisation | Adventure Pictures |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Contributed research findings from the DFAP project to both the original funding application and the successfully funded project led by Adventure Pictures under Innovate UK's Smart 2014 Round 3 fund. The proof-of-market project "MovieMatrix: Unlock, Explore, Share the power of Big Data in Film and Television" secured £25,000 from this fund. |
Collaborator Contribution | Adventure Pictures shared their project findings with us. |
Impact | The collaboration has resulted in a further application to Innovate UK, which is due to be submitted imminently. Disciplines involved: Computer Science, Film Studies and Film Production. |
Start Year | 2014 |
Description | BBC Archive Development |
Organisation | British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | The DFAP team have been sharing knowledge and information generated by the project. |
Collaborator Contribution | Bill Thompson of BBC Archive Development is brokering various partnerships between the DFAP team and specialists across the BBC in order to facilitate mutually beneficial knowledge exchange activities relating to the data management and production workflows around audiovisual content. These partnerships will include BBC Research and Development, News, Sports, Information & Archives, the Natural History Unit and Television Production. |
Impact | Atkinson, S. Evans, R. and Lehmann, J. (2014) The DEEP FILM Access Project: Ontology and Metadata Design for Digital Film Production Assets. "Big Humanities Data" Conference Proceedings , The Second IEEE Big Data 2014 Workshop, Bethesda, Maryland, Oct 27, 2014. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | BFI |
Organisation | British Film Institute (BFI) |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | The DFAP are sharing their knowledge and findings with curators at the BFI, specifically any taxonomies and document descriptions that are being generated. |
Collaborator Contribution | Curators and archival professionals from the BFI are supporting the DFAP through the sharing of their practices and procedures of processing current data sets in their own film, scripts, documents and ephemera collections, which includes the recently acquired Ken Loach archive. This specialist knowledge includes how they apply national and international archival and metadata standards within their own implementation of a specialist archival software system. |
Impact | Atkinson, S. Evans, R. and Lehmann, J. (2014) The DEEP FILM Access Project: Ontology and Metadata Design for Digital Film Production Assets. "Big Humanities Data" Conference Proceedings , The Second IEEE Big Data 2014 Workshop, Bethesda, Maryland, Oct 27, 2014. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | NMM |
Organisation | National Media Museum |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
PI Contribution | The DFAP are sharing their knowledge with NMM of potential new ontologies which will enable novel access to the museums holdings that move beyond their traditional chronological arrangements which are based on historical linear trajectories. In March and April 2014, the NMM hosted a full retrospective of Sally Potter's film work as part of Bradford International Film Festival. Within this programme, the DFAP team hosted a workshop around the DFAP project within the festival's educational strand. |
Collaborator Contribution | The Museum staff are providing the DFAP with access to samples of archival assets and metadata across their Library (books), Archive (documentation) and Collection (physical objects). |
Impact | Conference proceedings: Atkinson, S. Evans, R. and Lehmann, J. (2014) The DEEP FILM Access Project: Ontology and Metadata Design for Digital Film Production Assets. "Big Humanities Data" Conference Proceedings , The Second IEEE Big Data 2014 Workshop, Bethesda, Maryland, Oct 27, 2014. Workshop: 'The Anatomy of a film Professional Filmmaking practice and process', Bradford International Film Festival 2014, National Media Museum, 31st March 2014. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | SASE |
Organisation | University of Brighton |
Department | Screen Archives South East |
Country | United Kingdom |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | The DFAP are sharing their knowledge and findings with the film archivists which could potentially inform how SASE may handle and process digital film assets in the future. |
Collaborator Contribution | Digital archival specialists from Screen Archive South East are providing assistance and advice to the DFAP team based on the development of their current film archival databases and are contributing knowledge and experience about how they link these data sets for researchers, historians, film-makers and other users. SASE have also facilitated links with the Presto4U Project and their Film Collections and Filmmakers Community of Practice (CoP) who are also exchanging resources and knowledge with DFAP. |
Impact | Atkinson, S. Evans, R. and Lehmann, J. (2014) The DEEP FILM Access Project: Ontology and Metadata Design for Digital Film Production Assets. "Big Humanities Data" Conference Proceedings , The Second IEEE Big Data 2014 Workshop, Bethesda, Maryland, Oct 27, 2014. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | USC |
Organisation | University of Southern California |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | The DFAP are sharing their dataset, knowledge and findings with this partner. |
Collaborator Contribution | The University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts are providing the assistance of their Large Scale Video Analytics Project Medici system (LSVA), which is a collaboration between themselves, the Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts and Social Science, and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications with support from the National Science Foundation's XSEDE (extreme science and engineering research environment) programme. They are assisting DFAP in the establishment of protocols for working with the vast range of media assets that are created in the process of making a feature length film. |
Impact | Atkinson, S. Evans, R. and Lehmann, J. (2014) The DEEP FILM Access Project: Ontology and Metadata Design for Digital Film Production Assets. "Big Humanities Data" Conference Proceedings , The Second IEEE Big Data 2014 Workshop, Bethesda, Maryland, Oct 27, 2014. |
Start Year | 2013 |
Description | CHASE Going Digital workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | 'Digital Film Archive, Film Studies and Participation Learning', AHRC/CHASE Going Digital workshop series, Essex University, 31st October, 2014. There was lots of discussion both during and after the workshop, with participants (PhD students) requesting further information and resources. During the discussions, participants talked of how they would be integrating some of their learning from the workshop into their own approaches and methods to their doctoral studies, particularly in relation to their intended study of primary archival materials (both physical and digital). |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.essex.ac.uk/ldev/events/going_digital.aspx |
Description | NMM workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | The workshop sparked many questions and discussions afterwards. Responses to a post-experience questionnaire revealed a change in both the participants knowledge and in the impact on the approaches to their work. One respondent stated that: 'it has taught me the latest way for practical film making'. In another instance, the respondent describes a practice change which they intended to take forwards their learning from the workshop - 'in terms of utilising a more interactive approach in film analysis'. Another stated that 'it will inform my teaching' going onto state that: 'I think it provides a great level of insight in particularly for the students. A lot of my students want to skip the preproduction and go straight to production but this showed them the necessity and impact of pre-production. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/bradfordinternationalfilmfestival/diary/~/link.aspx?_id=733EAE... |